Jun

4

June 1942

U.S. and Japanese clash at Battle of Midway

U.S. Navy Douglas TBD-1 Devastators of Torpedo Squadron 6 (VT-6) unfolding their wings on the deck of USS Enterprise (CV-6) prior to launching for attack against four Japanese carriers on the first day of the Battle of Midway. Established as VT-8S in 1937, the squadron was redesignated VT-6 that same year. Accepting delivery of its first TBD-1 aircraft in 1938, the squadron operated from USS Enterprise (CV-6). Following the entry of the United States into World War II, VT-6 participated in hit and run raids against the Marshalls and Wake Island. Launched on the morning of 4 June 1942, against the Japanese carrier fleet during the Battle of Midway, the squadron lost ten of fourteen aircraft during their attack.

The fighting did not go entirely the US Navy's way. The USS Yorktown on fire after being hit by Japanese bombers on the morning of 4th June 1942. Damage control parties were able to bring matters under control within an hour. When the second wave of Japanese planes arrived they believed she had already been sunk and that they were attacking another US carrier.

The Japanese had failed to neutralise the American naval forces in the Pacific with their surprise attack on Pearl Harbour. Now they sought to lure the American carriers into a final engagement by invading the the island of Midway.

There was to be no surprise attack because the US had cracked the Japanese naval codes. Instead it was the US carrier based planes that were to find the Japanese carriers and launch a devastating assault. Robert J. Casey was a journalist based on one of the heavy cruisers:

I was right at headquarters when first reports began to come in from our planes. The first message was brief. The Jap carriers had been located, a little belatedly, and they were virtually without air cover. Apparently all their planes had been sent out to make the conquest of Midway quick and easy.

However, the squadron commander of the TBD [Douglas Torpedo Bomber] unit reporting, said that his planes were virtually out of fuel.
‘Request permission,’ he called, ‘to withdraw from action and refuel.
The admiral’s answer was terse. ‘Attack at once.’

So as I sat down in the chartroom to bite into a ham sandwich, the planes had begun to move in on the carriers. Whatever might be the result, we’d never be able to criticize the quality of our opportunity …

I sat there thinking. The Jap air admiral undoubtedly had figured us as permanent fixtures in the southwest Pacific where last he had had word of us. So just about now he’d be looking up at the sky suddenly clouded with SBD’s [Douglas Scout Bombers] and asking himself the Japanese equivalent of ‘Where the hell did those things come from?’ …

If these planes have failed in their mission or fought a draw or left the Japanese carriers usable we may expect a quick and vicious attack in return. If by some remote juju we have put all four carriers out of commission we have just about gained mastery of the Pacific …

Presently the word filtered back to us that the attack had been a complete success. All the carriers had been hit and severely damaged. At least three of them were burning. One, apparently had been sunk in the first two or three minutes of the engagement.

One battleship of the north group of the force that we had attacked was afire. A second battleship had been hit. Reports from the Army told of hits on two more battleships and another carrier. Discounting these messages to the fullest extent and recognizing how easy it is for one observer to duplicate the report of another, it was still obvious that we had had something of a field day, still obvious that the bulk of ]apan’s attacking planes must presently be going into the drink for want of any other place to land.

The US carrier planes had won a stunning victory, three of the four Japanese carriers had been hit – and hit so badly that they would eventually be abandoned and scuttled. At the second strike later in the day found the last remaining carrier, Hiryu, and finished her off as well. This was a decisive victory for the US Navy, a turning point in the war in the Pacific because it left the Japanese fleet so weakened.

USS Yorktown (CV-5) is hit on the port side, amidships, by a Japanese Type 91 aerial torpedo during the mid-afternoon attack by planes from the carrier Hiryu, in the Battle of Midway, on 4 June 1942. Yorktown is heeling to port and is seen at a different aspect than in other views taken by USS Pensacola (CA-24), indicating that this is the second of the two torpedo hits she received. Note very heavy anti-aircraft fire.

The burning Japanese aircraft carrier Hiryu, photographed by a plane from the carrier Hosho shortly after sunrise on 5 June 1942. Hiryu sank a few hours later. Note collapsed flight deck over the forward hangar.

Follow the war as it happened …

Updated 75 years after the event…

Overlord for iPad

Links to New Book Excerpts…

Recommended

The second volume of this superb overview of the whole war.
You had to eat somewhere, sleep somewhere and occasionally you felt a desperate need to talk to someone, even though you were aware that to do so could be dangerous, if not fatal. Boredom was, in fact, a menace that no one was taught to contend with at the training school. Boredom was something individuals had to deal with themselves, and it cost quite a few men and women their lives when they came up with the wrong solution.
The Tigers were over-engineered, required raw materials that were in short supply, were time-consuming to manufacture and difficult to recover from the battlefield. Only around 1,300 of the Tiger I and fewer than 500 of the Tiger II were produced, so they were never going to make anything more than a local impact on the outcome of the fighting on the Western and Eastern fronts. Yet the myth of the Tigers, with their 88mm guns, thick armour and brutal profiles, has grown over time to the extent that they are regarded as the deadliest tanks of the Second World War.